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A bid by the Opposition and Independent Senator Anthony Vieira to put Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar before the Committee of Privileges was shut down by Senate president Wade Mark on Tuesday.

Mark ruled that having carefully studied two correspondences received from Opposition Leader of Government Business Dr Amery Browne and Vieira, seeking to raise two matters of privilege, he was "convinced that neither of the two submissions meets the threshold to be raised as a matter of privilege".

The Matters of Privilege arose from Persad-Bissessar's statements last month that Independent Senators were "brown nosers and bootlickers" and had been appointed by a President who was a "low level PNM functionary". The PM's remarks were made ahead of debate in the Senate of the Government's Zones of Special Operations (ZOSO) Bill 2026, which then flopped in the Senate.